Increased US-Cuba counter-narcotics cooperation could be a major boon to future national security for both countries, according to Rens Lee, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Lee presented the findings of his recent paper on Cuba’s national and international drug policies during a discussion with Frank Mora, of the National War College, and Randy Beardsworth, of Catalyst Partners, at the Inter-American Dialogue on February 27.
Cuba’s varying levels of tolerance to drug traffickers begs the question, “Is Cuba a bridge or a barrier for the flow of drugs to the US?” said Beardsworth.
Lee explained that the Communist revolution wiped out the domestic market for cocaine and marijuana that flourished in the 1940s and 1950s, and pushed traffickers to leave the island. But in the 1980s Cuban corroboration of the international drug trade became “deep, if selectively complicit,” he said. After several ignoring accusations of corruption in the first half of the decade, the Cuban government opened an investigation of the Ministry of the Interior in 1989. They found that top officials had collaborated with Colombian cartels to smuggle approximately six tons of cocaine for a US$3.4 million profit, and may have smuggled arms to the cartel. The scandal “marked a watershed moment” in Cuba’s drug policy, said Lee.
Cuba worked diligently to distance itself from drugs in the 1990s. Taking a tougher stance on the issue was a simple way to garner international support after the collapse of the Soviet Union sent the Cuban economy into crisis, said Lee. He added that national factors—such as resurging domestic drug use and the political threat that wealthy, powerful druglords posed to the regime—also catalyzed the shift.
Cuba’s recent counter-narcotics efforts have been multi-pronged, said Lee. The government has increased surveillance of the coastline, set up nearly 200 health centers for users, strengthened counter-narcotics legislation—increasing penalties for drug trafficking and cultivation, and making money laundering a criminal offense—and authorized the seizure of drug-related properties and house-to-house searches nationwide.
Lee believes that these policies have successfully reduced the amount of drugs used in Cuba. According to his sources, the prices of drugs have skyrocketed since the early 2000s and the number of new users entering treatment facilities has declined significantly. Mora also noted that, while some of the reforms have been criticized for being more heavy-handed than the Latin America norm, US Coast Guard officials say that drugs entering the US via Cuba have become much rarer.
Since the 1990s Cuba has also expanded international cooperation on counter-narcotics efforts, signing agreements with 33 other countries and collaborating with the US on an ad hoc basis, said Lee. Beardsworth explained that cooperation between the US Coast Guard and Cuban officials has increased markedly, citing more direct communication, case-by-case assistance with at-sea vessel searches, and the installation of a Coast Guard official in the US Interests Section in Havana.
Lee argued that, with the island located only 90 miles from the coast and on a direct flight path between Colombia or Venezuela and Florida, it is in the national interest of the US to increase counter-narcotics cooperation with Cuba. Practical measures could include training and equipping Cuban officers, coordinating bi-national patrols in the Western Caribbean, and signing ship-rider agreements. Beardsworth recommended increasing “bureaucrat-to-bureaucrat relations” as a long-term, pragmatic way to improve regional control of drug trafficking. Lee also posited that more intrusive measures—including stationing DEA and FBI agents in Havana, and allowing US Coast Guard to chase traffickers who enter Cuban waters—could be possible once the Castro brothers leave office.
Unfortunately, agreed the panelists, several political concerns stand in the way of increased cooperation. Cubans are worried about their sovereignty and the US has yet to reach a bi-partisan consensus that “drugs represent a bigger threat to the hemisphere than does Cuban Communism,” said Lee. He added that continued support for the Helms Burton Act, which passed in 1996 and strengthened the pre-existing US embargo against Cuba, is representative of the fact that many US policy-makers hesitate to cooperate with a regime they still consider illegitimate and repressive.
Beardsworth warned that US interest groups must carefully consider the effects of lobbying for a regime change in Havana, because liberties for Cubans may come at the expense of efficient counter-narcotics programs. Cuba, said Mora, is currently an unattractive destination for traffickers “who seek out ungoverned or under-governed areas.” A transition could create a power vacuum that would be very attractive to “Colombian and Mexican druglords who are waiting in the wings,” and who could build upon existing black market networks, said Lee. To avoid such a scenario, agreed the panelists, the US must increase counter-narcotics cooperation as soon as possible, although it may not seem to be a pressing concern.
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Increased US-Cuba counter-narcotics cooperation could be a major boon to future national security for both countries, according to Rens Lee, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Lee presented the findings of his recent paper on Cuba’s national and international drug policies during a discussion with Frank Mora, of the National War College, and Randy Beardsworth, of Catalyst Partners, at the Inter-American Dialogue on February 27.